Poetry is what gets lost in translation-Robert Frost

February 28, 2018

Paul Theroux's Hotel Honolulu (2001) is a curious novel for several reasons. First of all, his novels are often hit or miss for me-but I enjoyed this novel for it's liveliness and insights filtered through the Theroux-like doppelganger narrator (a common device in Theroux novels) who divorces and moves to Hawaii to start over and ends up managing a third rate hotel in Waikiki. This manager, a former writer (we never learn his name) who recounts the stories of the people he encounters as the manger of the bigger than life owner Buddy Hamstra's hotel. Hamstra is a rich self-made, self-proclaimed "dog" known for his excesses in eating and drinking, and an unrepentant practical joker who survived two wives and ends up with a mail order Filipino bride. Hamstra can be seen as a metaphor for Hawaii itself in some respects. Many of the stories end violently or are concerned with sex and they allow the narrator to make observations about people, Hawaii, and life in general. It is essentially a collection of vignettes held together by location and the narrator who recounts the many stories-there are 80 rooms in the hotel and 80 chapters in the book.

February 27, 2018

Bi Gan's directing debut Kaili Blues (2015) is pretty impressive. The film belong to the slow school of film making and is long on mood and short on exposition. It follows the lives of people in a small community in Kaili, a province in south China not far from SE Asia. The principal story concerns Chen (Chen Yongzhong), a former convict who works as a doctor and goes on a search his nephew, Wei wei-whom he fears will be sold into slavery by his gambling addicted half brother know as Crazy Face. This allows the director to document Kaili as it is now-for ti is sure to change in the modern surging economy of China-in this sense it reminds me of the early films of Jia Zhenghke, who also was documenting the changes in his home province of Shanxi. One of the highlights in the film is a 40 minute no-cut, wide angle traveling shot on a moped in the middle of the film is a legend in the making – it is an impressive and cinematic sequence. I look forward to see what his next film looks like.

Serie Noire (1979) is Alain Cornea's adaptation of a classic Jim Thompson novel (One Hell of a Woman). Franck Poupart (Patrick Deware) is the hapless door to door salesman that stumbles into a plan to rob Mona's (Marie Trintignant) abusive aunt (Jeanne Herviale), who pimps her out for money.It feels like a successful adaptation in that the story feels connected to the seedy Paris of the 1970s as well as the actors who seems to embody the seediness in their characters. A surprising gem.

February 23, 2018

I was inspired by the extras in Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors boxset to see his earlier masterpiece, Blind Chance (1987). It has an original idea in that the main character Witek (Boguslaw Linda), a medical student whose father dies, lives out three different realities. These are based on whether or not he catches a train to Warsaw. These realities include becoming an active member of the communist party, a member of the opposition, and becoming an apolitical doctor/researcher. The ending puts the three realities in perspective-an inventive and thought-provoking film that was originally shelved in 1981 by state-imposed censorship due to the film's political content.

February 22, 2018

I had some time to kill before checking into my Air BnB accommodation on Kauai, so I decided to take the Blue Hawaiian Helicopter Tour of Kauai Island, since most of it is inaccessible and privately owned.

I was surprised by how much I liked Anh Hung Tran's Norwegian Wood (2010). But I should haven't been since I enjoyed several of his previous films (Cyclo, The Scent of Green Papaya, and Vertical Ray of the Sun). Furthermore, the cinematography was exquisite and was done by frequent Wong Kar-wai and Hsiao-hsien Hou collaborator Ping Bin Lee (In the Mood for Love, Millennium Mambo, The Assassin, etc.). Furthermore, the sparse score was done by Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood. It is an adaptation of Haruki Mursakami's most beloved novel of the same name. It is the story fo Toru Watanabe (Kenichi Matsyama) a student in Tokyo during the turbulent late 60s who recalls when his best friend Kizuki (Kengo Kora) killed himself and how he grew close to Naoko (Rinko kiuchi), Kizuki's girlfriend. Then later another woman, the outgoing, lively Midori (Kiko Mizuhara). Make no mistake this is an art film, it is over two hours long and mostly involves conversations between lovers but has some very evocative cinematography-certainly not for everyone. But I felt it was a successful adaptation of a beloved novel by Murakami.